


Do they hurt?

by FreakyVintageWallpapers



Category: God of War (Video Games)
Genre: Kratos with his before family, Kratos with his boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 19:33:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16373720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreakyVintageWallpapers/pseuds/FreakyVintageWallpapers
Summary: No matter how many times he swore to a dying Faye and himself that Atreus would be different, that Atreus would have the fighting chance to survive he couldn’t shake the thought of his dead child in his arms.





	Do they hurt?

He opened his eyes to see his daughter. Her eyes rimmed red and puffed, a wooden doll with a painted face was held tight in her arms. She was trying her best to stop her sniffling by using the back of her hand to wipe her running nose.    
  
“Calliope?” He mumbled, the sheet falling around his waist as he sat up to face the little girl. The chains on his arm clinked together as he moved and the scabbards at his side dug uncomfortably at the back of his thighs.   
  


“I ha-had a nightmare, Fa-Father.” She whimpered. He nodded slowly, his half asleep mind trying to process what she was trying to tell him. The cold air from the open windows chilled his skin and the floor. He ignored the freezing stones beneath him as he put a hand on Calliope’s shoulder. She allowed her father to lead her back to her room, where she obediently crawled back into bed and stared at him expectantly.    
  
He picked up a discarded blanket that had fallen from the foot of her bed and motioned for her to lay down. He made a show of shaking out the blanket before throwing it over her and letting it cover her completely. She giggled as she pushed the blanket off her head and stared up with shining eyes at her father. Kratos couldn’t help but smile at his daughter.    
  
“What was the nightmare about?” He asked, taking a seat on the edge of the small bed. The braids in her hair had come loose as she was sleeping, and had revealed curly locks that refused to lay down flat no matter how Kratos petted them. Calliope’s tiny hands wrapped around her father’s own, stopping his movements. For an eight year old she was rather good at giving her father grave stares. His small smile fell and was replaced with a look of concern.

  
“Father,” she paused looking away as if she was uncertain of her next words, “Are you hurt?”    
  
Kratos couldn’t help but chuckle. He squeezed her little hand, “I am fine. I told you as such when I came home.”     
  
Whenever he returned home from a campaign and he was greeted by his daughter jumping into his waiting arms, he made a point to assure his family that he was fine. He allowed his wife and daughter to fret and check every inch of him before deeming that he was allowed to carry on as usual. She knew he was fine! Still, her worry for his health made him laugh, wasn’t he the parent?    
  
“Father, do they hurt?” Her soft fingers trailed over the hard metal chains wrapped tight around his arms. He glanced at them, at how her skin seemed to glow when compared to something as lifeless as the cold metal. He wrapped both his hands around her’s and he tugged her closer.    
  
“They haven’t caused me pain in a long time. Why do you ask?” He squeezed her hand.    
  
“In my dream, Father, you were- The chains they... They burned your arms.” She turned away and looked out the window next to her bed, her voice dropping to a whisper, “And you cried.”     
  
Kratos blanched and couldn’t help the bark of laughter the tore from him. Calliope looked down at her lap, her face heating as her father laughed at her.    
  
“It must have been some nightmare! Did you know your father can’t cry?” He poked her stomach and lifted her chin. Once he was sure she was looking at him he made a show of flexing his muscles.    
  
“I’m too strong!” He told her, and she pushed his arm down with a smile that made her nose wrinkle.    
  
“Everyone cries! Mother told me so!” Calliope said matter of factly. She crossed her arms with a huff of fake annoyance.    
  
“Your mother,” Kratos leaned in closely, “was wrong!”    
  
Calliope gasped at the accusation. As if her mother could be wrong! Lysandra was the smartest person in the whole wide world! She pinched her father’s forearm. Much to Kratos’ surprise, she had quite the grip. He quickly began to tickle her sides so she had to let go, and she fell back into a fit of giggles. Kratos captured both her hands with his own before she could make an attempt to fight back. He couldn’t help the contented sigh as his daughter let out the last of her laughter before relaxing.    
  
“Now, see, I’m fine. And the night is still young and you need rest. Or your mother will have my head for letting you stay up so late.” He pulled the cover up to her chin, and grabbed her discarded doll and tucked it into her side. Calliope nodded, yawning into her hand as she rolled over.    
  
Her father watched with a tinge of sadness in his heart. He hated to know that her worry for his safety had spread to her dreams. He didn’t know how to explain that the gods were on his side during battle, and that they’re small family had been blessed. So there was no need to worry. She was too little, but already growing so fast. Kratos could remember picking his infant daughter out of her crib just to hold her before he had to lead his men to march against another army. Any day she would get bold enough to ask where the Blades had come from and what he had done to get them, and part of him filled with dread at the thought.   
  
But it comforted him to know that she still came to him after bad dreams. He was still her protector, and she sought out for him to act as such. With a slight hesitancy from fear of waking her, he pressed a quick kiss to her temple. Slowly, while wincing as both his knees and lower back cracked, he rose from the bed and trudged back to his own. His wife, her brown curls splayed over the pillow, was waiting for him. There was a smile on her face that only grew wider as he came closer.    
  
“You’re such a good father. And to think you once told me you weren’t cut out for children.” She sighed into the kiss he gave her as he slipped back under the covers.    
  
“I said I wasn’t cut out for raising a daughter. I know she will grow up to be as wild and as troublesome as you. How will I protect the other men from her? She’ll break all their hearts like you did mine.” He corrected, wrapping an arm around her and bringing her closer against his side. She seemed to tense as the metal of the chains touched her bare back, but she didn’t complain.    
  
“We could always send her to a temple for Artemis or Athena. So she can spend her days praying and being a prude like her father. Wha- No, Kratos that isn’t really an option get that look off your face.” Lysandra warned, tugging lightly at the hair on his chin. She pulled him into another kiss before she settled her head on his shoulder.    
  
Kratos couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have such a beautiful wife and amazing daughter. It comforted him so much to think so that he fell asleep with a surprising ease.    
  
——   
  
He woke with a start, a breath caught in his throat as he tried to breathe in the chilling air. He was sure the wind itself was freezing his lungs as his eyes darted around, trying to get his bearings. He was in his bed, alone with an empty space next to him that left his chest feeling hollow. Faye, Atreus, Ragnarök, it all cane flowing back on at once.    
  
He couldn’t help but run a calloused hand down his tired face. It had been ages since he dreamed of his previous family, and it had been almost a century since he was able to have a dream including them that didn’t turn into a nightmare. It had been so vivid. He could still see Calliope’s brown eyes rimmed red from tears, he could smell Lysandra’s perfume that has clung to her hair and skin. A cold chill ran down his spine and he forced himself to sit up.    
  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement in the bed next to his own. When he turned his head he had expected Atreus to be rolling over in his sleep not to be upright with his journal balanced in his lap. The boy didn’t seem aware of his father’s presence until Kratos set his feet on the floor and the wooden boards creaked. Atreus whipped his head around and met eyes with his father. He quickly shoved his journal back under his pillow as Kratos walked over to him. 

 

“Why are you up?” Kratos asked, his voice still rough from sleep. Atreus laid his head on his pillow and averted his eyes from his father’s. 

“I had another nightmare.” He whispered. Kratos found the boy’s furs tangled at the foot of his bed. He shook them out and covered him up to his chin. Atreus kept a watchful eye on him the whole time, and Kratos knew that the boy wanted him to ask about it. But he couldn’t deal with anymore dreams tonight, not with Calliope and Lysandra's soft brown eyes still fresh in his mind. 

Though they had grown close in the few weeks after they scattered Faye’s ashes, they still regarded each other with a sense of unease during certain domestic situations. Kratos was still trying to get his bearings as a father and Atreus was trying to figure out where he stood with him. 

“You need rest, the night is still young and we have work to do tomorrow. I won’t stop to help you because you’re tired.” Kratos pulled the journal out from under his pillow and tucked it under his bed. He made a point to ignore the slight pout his son was giving him. 

“Yes, sir.” He mumbled, burying himself farther under the blankets. Kratos was glad his son didn’t argue or try to say another word. He must have sensed his father’s discomfort. Before he went back to his own bed he fed the fire which was down to a few smoldering embers. Atreus made a quiet grunt of thanks which sounded much more like a squeak. 

As they laid awake in silence together, Kratos thought back to Calliope. To her soft hair that Lysandra would spend almost an hour washing and braiding every morning. He thought of her eyes, always full of light and how they wrinkled at the corners when she saw him. She had always been so small in his arms no matter how big she got. Just like her brother. Kratos frowned at the ceiling. It was never good to mix memories of his children together. 

It had taken him the entirety of Faye’s pregnancy to calm most of his anxieties he had about their newest arrival. His nights were plagued with the memory of the night he walked into Athena’s temple after disregarding the oracles warnings. Except Lysandra wasn’t waiting for him, it was Faye holding their unborn child in her arms. Her golden eyes hard turned red from her tears as she held the bloody mass of flesh in her eyes. The nightmare always ended as soon as he swung the blades. 

When Lysandra was pregnant Kratos was overjoyed, he couldn’t stop kissing her or her belly. He spent every night rubbing her swelling feet and spent the mornings holding her hair as sickness took her. It had been the best months of his life as he waited for his daughter to be born. With Faye it had been a non stop arguments and tearful nights as the slept side by side. Kratos had told her immediately that he didn’t believe the child would make it. Faye had taken offense and no matter how many times Kratos assured her that the child’s death would be because of him, she flew into a furious rage. She would pound at his chest or run from the house to get away from him. They would come back together at the end of the day and let the tears flow without shame. They both feared that Kratos was right for different reasons. 

Atreus has been born ill just like Calliope, and he would always regret telling Faye that they should leave him outside. She had laughed at first, thinking he had been joking, but when she saw his expression she burst into sobs. He told her it was spartan custom with any child born sickly. There was no more ambrosia to save his son, and if it were locked away in this new realm he wouldn’t know where to find it. He knew if he tried to fight it would only raise his wife’s hopes up and make her feel even worse when he lost. He never forgave himself for that night, and he told her for months afterwards that he regretted it. That he regretted being so weak, but Faye has forgiven him and told him she understood. 

Staring at the ceiling he finally heard his son’s breathing slow as he drifted off into sleep. His chest was heavy as he thought of how ready he was to abandon his baby to the wilderness. He realized now that it had been out of fear. An irrational fear he hadn’t felt since he lost Pandora to the box that created her. He had been fearful for Faye, who had already grown so attached to the infant, and for himself. The nine months she spent pregnant with their son Kratos had trained himself to be as distant as possible with the babe. He knew what would happen if he built up hope. 

He convinced himself the baby would die before it got the chance to open its eyes. He couldn’t believe how wrong he had been. He remembered swearing Faye to secrecy when he witnessed his son take his first steps which had made Kratos tear up. When Atreus spoke his first words Kratos never stopped encouraging him to speak. But the more leaps and bounds the toddler made, the more distance Kratos put between he and his son. The overwhelming fear that Atreus would die was only reinforced by his constant sickness. That fear turned him cold every time he even looked at his son. He knew the rough attitude he gave him only hurt Atreus, but if he knew what his father was capable of, what his love would do to him. 

Kratos would kill Atreus. It made him shudder to think about, but it had always been him. He killed Lysandra and Calliope. He killed Athena and the rest of his half siblings. He killed Pandora and her father. He killed Orkos and the barbarians. He slaughtered thousands of innocent mortals because of his grudge against the gods. If only Atreus knew what the death toll his father carried he wouldn’t be so eager to earn his affection.

The way those blue eyes silently begged for his father to hold him or comfort him as his mother once did broke Kratos’ heart. Whenever he lifted the boy or felt his weight on his back, part of Kratos went numb. No matter how many times he swore to a dying Faye and himself that Atreus would be different, that Atreus would have the fighting chance to survive he couldn’t shake the thought of his dead child in his arms. He wanted it to be different. He had stopped Baldur so Freya could live, he tried his best to avoid the gods when he could, and even found himself putting up with the dwarves.

He made allies, something he had never had before because he promised everything would be different in this land. Everything would be better. But in three years time he would destroy the world as he had in Greece. So much for different. The thought of Ragnarok only made him want to push Atreus farther away. Kratos had a horrible knack for surviving the impossible and living with the consequences, he couldn’t stop thinking about how at the end of winter they would be forced to fight for their lives. And he couldn’t shake the thought that during the battle he would lose the only light left in his life. And he would be alone, and he would have nowhere to run to escape the grief.

Kratos couldn’t help but wonder what scared him more, the thought of being utterly alone again or losing his child. He was so disgusted when he realized he couldn’t choose. For eleven years he had been anticipating the death of his child, but he had always imagined Faye being there with him when it happened. Even thinking about returning to the cabin alone without his son made his chest seize and his mouth run dry. He really was a monster. 

If only Atreus knew what his father was capable of, he wouldn’t search for his love. He would escape while he could. 

A sudden rage boiled inside of him, overtaking the anxiety. How could he even be thinking of that? He swore to Faye that he would protect his son, and he was consistently failing. If Atreus got hurt it wouldn’t be because of his father’s love it was because Kratos wasn’t trying hard enough to keep him alive. He was still as weak as the day his son was born.

Kratos sat up and looked to his sleeping son. How could he ever waste time thinking about losing his son when he was alive and in need of protecting. He swore at himself. He would do for Atreus what he didn’t do for Calliope. He would love and protect his child this time. He would save his allies, and he wouldn’t let the gods take everything once more. He couldn’t let them. 

He settled back down and waited for the rage in his heart to fan itself out. He would do better. He was so lucky to at least have his child left, and this time he wouldn’t lose him. He repeated the promise to himself until he finally fell into a dreamless sleep.

——— 

He awoke at the first light of dawn. The fire had died and the cold seeped in past the insulated walls and under his furs. Kratos forced himself up, his eyes immediately checking over at his son. The boy had sprawled out across the bed, his mouth wide open as he snored softly. The cold didn’t seem to bother him so Kratos didn’t bother to pile more furs on top of him as he’d been doing the previous mornings.

Outside was even worse. Though the sky was clear the wind was blowing so hard it was shaking the snow off the tree branches. He might as well be walking through a blizzard. The firewood had been stored against the side of the house and still seemed relatively fine despite the heavy winds. He was quick to tuck a stack of logs under his arm and get back inside.

He started the fire once more and searched through there rations. Atreus had shot down a deer the other day and had been save strips of meat to cook during the mornings. Kratos could easily remember back to his days on Olympus when he feasted like a god, and food had been readily provided. He didn’t deserve it back then, and he still didn’t but he wished Atreus could know the luxury of not having to worry about where his meal came from if he even had one. 

The pan was still covered in days old grease but he placed it over the fire anyway. If the meat was overgreased than it would be more in their bellies. Had it been a few months ago, Kratos would have refused to eat from it, now they were too desperate too. The grease melted and was soon bubbling hot. It popped as soon as the strips of meat were laid in it but Kratos didn’t flinch. Heat and fire stopped bothering his arms long ago. 

At the smell of cooking food his son roused from his sleep. He slumped forward as soon as he sat up. A yawn pulled him upright as he hesitantly put his bare feet on the cold floor. When he finally managed to open his eyes he gave Kratos an odd look. 

“Father, I make breakfast.” He said, crossing his arms. Kratos would say that he almost sounded offended that his father would do his job for him. But he looked at the pan popping with burning grease and he didn’t seem as offended as he did before. 

“I was already up. Sit by the fire, it’s too cold to be without any shoes.” Kratos flipped the meat with a dirtied fork that had been sitting next to the pan. Atreus wrapped a blanket around his shivering form and planted himself next to the fire, sighing contently at the heat it gave off. The smile Atreus gave him made his chest go numb.

“Thank you for cooking, it smells good!” He said. His eyes wrinkled in the corners when he grinned and he was about to turn his back and leave to find plates, but he remembered what he swore to himself just hours ago. He nodded at his son instead. He would be better than he was before. He would do better for Atreus. 

“Last night, you said you had a nightmare. What was it about.” Kratos went to the table where their plates from last night had been left. He would have to remind Atreus to do the dishes before lunch before they attracted rodents. 

Atreus was quiet and Kratos didn’t push. He laid the food in the plate, making sure he gave the one with larger portions to Atreus before settling next to him by the fire. 

“It was about us.” Atreus finally spoke. They had begun eating in silence and Kratos had already decided that his son wouldn’t tell him. He looked at the boy next to him who busied himself by staring at his food.

“Us?” Kratos asked, stabbing another piece of meat with the beginning to rust fork. Atreus settled his small hands on top of his father’s scarred arms. Kratos went still. He forced himself to shake the cold look from his face in turn for a concerned one. 

“Atreus?”

“Father,” he started, his fingers began to trace the soft skin where the chains used to be.

“Do they hurt?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you like god of war check out my tumblr @you-were-always-ready-son 
> 
> Special thank to Jaci (feedittothefish) for always being supportive and pushing for me to actually finish the things I start!


End file.
